


Dublin

by crayons



Category: f(x)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9086200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayons/pseuds/crayons
Summary: It’s not really a Love Triangle if one is dead.





	1. Chapter 1

Jinri tells her with paper cranes and wonderful prose that she will love her forever. Krystal was feeling delightful because it’d be great if it were really true. Lovely enough even, that there is a certain someone thinking of spending a stupidly long amount of time with her and thinks that she can endure it.

Jinri is nothing short of beautiful. Jinri is nothing short of anything actually if Krystal were to really think about it. There is a rollercoaster in her mind, offering her a swirl of happiness and lunacy and addictive things. And when Krystal has collected around a drawer full of Jinri’s folded orange swans, she rewards her with a kiss.

Krystal has to admit, though probably never in front of Jinri, that she really is nothing short of anything wonderful and beautiful and tasteful.

*

Jinri looks at her first, walks towards her first, holds her hand first. It makes Krystal a bit wary and uncomfortable when Jinri stops initiating their tiny moments suddenly. And it’s not like Krystal can’t be bothered to attempt at intimacy, but she hates how it reduces her to playing a clumsy supposed-to-be giggly blushy teenage girl.

It makes Krystal feel even more guilty for not even trying when Jinri doesn’t frown or get sad, or react at all when Krystal avoids her gaze from a street away and decides to walk her own way – only a good five feet ahead of the older girl to school.

Jinri doesn’t even turn to face her their whole homeroom period. First period was History. Stalin and Nero and Berlin compressed in an hour of repetitive babble. Krystal specifically asks for Jinri to accompany her to the infirmary as an excuse to settle things once and for all.

They reach the hallway when she finally gives in and speaks. “Where are you hurting?”

Krystal stops and waits for JInri to look at her, but she learns that she has to go in front of her to see eye to eye. “Cure me please.”

It’s kind of cute actually. Krystal probably doesn’t realize it. Jinri can’t help herself so she pokes Krystal’s cheek. “That’s why we’re going to the clinic, silly.”

They walk side-by-side to the end of the hallway where Krystal gets the courage to speak up. “I’m sorry if I’m like this.”

Jinri understands, nodding slightly, slipping her hand into hers quietly. “I’m sorry if I’m like this.”

*

People pour in the classroom avoiding her eyes. Why? She hadn’t done anything wrong.

Just this morning, Jinri was forcing her to get out of bed, looking mighty fine in her Friday blue floral sundress. Krystal blinks and before she knows it, she rushes to the bathroom and bathes under the running water taking her time; she remembers this, because her mother carefully knocks on the door to check how she’s doing. And she comes out hair dripping and with only a tiny towel draped across her body because she has forgotten to bring her robe.

Why was Jinri still in her sundress? It’s a school day. She should get ready. It would be another long day.

Her mother gives the faintest smile not quite reaching her eyes and wrings out her hair for her. This she remembers because of the sound of the droplets hitting the floor. Like tears.

She walks to her school in tiny sluggish steps, lazy on the shoulders and heavy on the feet. This, Krystal doesn’t remember so well. The distance feels shorter even though she’s walking slower and she’s forgotten if she’s passed by the sole white house a street away from school.

The school bell rings. The time lapses. Krystal sees the sky and waters combine to chew her whole and spit her out, in exchange of her heart. The sea swallows the blue floral sundress. She cries but its saltiness is overpowered by that of the sea. It is never quite the same after that.

*

They mention her in their graduation, her kindness, and how she will live in their memories forever.

Krystal is close to tears. She doesn’t want that. She wants her here, folding her paper cranes and promising her an eternity of love. She wants her here, trying to accomplish that, because Krystal never really saw her to be the type that can tolerate her and for such a long time at that.

But now she wants her here –no other place would be fit to have her try; Krystal could at least see that.

Her vision falters, and the light begins to settle on her eyelashes particularly well, Krystal was beginning to think that they’re celebrating their graduation along with Jinri. Her vision falters. Krystal has never been good at seeing things clearly.

*

Like how the waters never tire of going back to the shore, like how the waters never tire of falling into the green and brown of the earth, almost like how the waters can never help itself –no, not gravity– but a lesser force. A habit. She becomes a creature of habit.

She brings a paper crane to the office, sticking it on her work space next to her framed family picture. Krystal has long stopped unfolding them. It all says the same thing anyway. The same thing over and over. Like a prayer more than a promise.

*

At first it was just observation, then awareness, then appreciation. Of a girl named Luna that sits in the corner cubicle nearest the window. Of her playful cheerfulness and incandescent smiles. Krystal can’t help but follow her with her gaze as she walks by, wondering how it’ll be like to really get to know her.

Krystal just wastes her time staring. Appreciating without really knowing. It works better that way sometimes.

The girl, on the other hand, cheerful friendliness and all, goes to her cubicle and asks her out for lunch, disrupting her plans of merely being a spectator. She has held her hand out to her and who is Krystal not to accept when Luna is the one to offer her something she has already wanted without knowing.

*

It’s on the same day as their third lunch together and the first time they discover they can walk home together that Luna decides to become interesting, asking Krystal a bunch of trivial things like a ten year old. By the time she learns Krystal’s favorite color, Luna leans in for a kiss as goodbye, waving off and going to the opposite direction almost immediately.

The next morning Krystal waits for the girl’s kisses but there came none. 

*

“When will you kiss me again?” Krystal is reduced to the lowest of low, flirting in the narrowest space known to man, okay, not really. She corners Luna in the staff lounge while she was in the middle of making coffee.

“If you kissed me first, you wouldn’t have had to wait.” Luna looks at her. “I don’t mind at all really.”

And while Krystal usually prided herself with her patience, she decides she can be impatient just this once as she leans in for a kiss.

“Bright and obedient, I might just actually fall in love with you.”

It’s an empty statement, Krystal knows, but she’s hoping it could be a lot more.

*

The kisses become habitual because Luna doesn’t care, staying true to her words. She kisses Krystal in front of their officemates – Amber and Victoria (who shares the same cubicle row as Krystal), who are easily shocked and impressed.

“So our baby has fallen in love.” Victoria teases, patting her on the head tenderly.

“To be honest, I never did take you as the type to like girls.”

Amber receives a flick on the forehead for her remark.

Krystal gestures to the stack of documents on her desk and does it again when Victoria and Amber remained unmoving because those were an undone tall pile of work she needed done before 5 in the afternoon and their chatter isn’t really helping into finishing it.

Amber gives a guilty sort of expression like she has hurt the younger girl. And Krystal catches it before shoving them away to their own cubicles good-naturedly. She sighs as she sinks back into her chair, thinking of irrelevant things. She should have told them, even if it was none of their business. That? That she isn’t the type to like girls at all, she likes women; women with sultry and unexpected charms, with oozing charisma, women who are in control and use that ability to their advantage.

But even that doesn’t quite cover it. Krystal doesn’t just like women. She likes a woman. A sigh escapes from her lips again, her lungs exhausted. Krystal curses the world for not making her the type to voice out her thoughts.

*

“Are you free today? Maybe we can have dinner?”

“I can’t today. I’m visiting someone. Tomorrow instead?” Krystal looks up to glance at the clock that was hanging directly across her work station. Five o’clock. She still has a few minutes to buy flowers.

“Alright.”

She stomps away without as much as a single glance at Luna who was left dumb-founded at the realization that that could be the first time Krystal Jung has rejected her albeit indirectly.

*

Krystal doesn’t speak much. She doesn’t talk when she isn’t asked. Luna has a hard time pressing her for details about anything more than the basics, though she is particularly curious about the details from yesterday, but it’s even harder to come to that topic when Krystal only ever answers the same thing over and over.

“I don’t know actually.”

Luna leans forward, seizing in on the opportunity. “Tell me what you do know then, Krystal.”

“Uh it’s not like I’m particularly sure. And this is probably more of a theory more than anything, and the probability of this happening is least likely than I would have imagined but I would like it if it were just a tiny bit true. I think you’ll be good for me.”

Luna got the girl speaking all right.

“We can both believe that.” wins the battle against “I don’t think I’m good for anyone.”

*

“What do you know about Krystal?”

Out of all the people, Victoria should be least surprised that the one asking is Luna, on the other hand, she should be most surprised that the one asking is Luna.

“Shy when you first get to know her. But gets better. Turns chatty somewhat. Allergic to apples, likes magic tricks, cat person but not like that, more like cat person, if you know what I mean. Her day-off is on Wednesdays, which she enjoys wasting by reading. She sings. She can drive, but she has some weird leg numb thing stopping her. Says she might forget the feel of the clutch from the gas. And without a doubt a fact I know for sure, Krystal is coming our way. 7 o’clock.”

Luna turns clockwise. Directions. Stopping at a very direct 6 o’clock then a step from there to advance to 7. Admittedly, she is not very good at knowing the time. With days, she’s probably better. Luna decides she’s going to get to know this girl, every Wednesday, her whole Wednesday, if that’s what it’s going to take.

They start to make plans. Wednesday. Mornings. Breakfasts. Parks. Shoes. Lunch. Desserts. Libraries. Dinner. Some Wednesdays, they allot for work and accumulate days they can use to extend weekends and holidays together. Bikinis and expensive breakfasts buffets. Hotel and spa and bathtubs. They laugh at stupid things and ask silly questions.

“Apples?”

“No, I’m allergic.”

They start to make plans for the whole week.

And Luna stops wondering why she enjoys it so much.

*

Victoria tells her, because Victoria is the opposite of Krystal. Victoria tells her things Luna herself hasn’t realized she is asking. And when the answer came, the feeling that went with it Luna is unsure of. She looks over to where Krystal could be and she is there, holding a conversation with Amber who is smiling dumbly.

Is love selfless or selfish? Luna ponders on this, and doesn’t ever question why there is an ache in her chest and a lump in her throat because she knows. She knows she has fallen in love.

Victoria makes her turn to her again, looking at her thoughtfully. “It’s good you’re past denial.”

“I can’t be the only one in love.”

Is love selfless or selfish? It could be neither. Luna locks eyes with Krystal who gives her smile. It could be both.

*

Luna forgets she’s in love the next day. Forgets how love feels like with the absence of Krystal in the office. And she thinks maybe she’s a person of proximity. The prospect of it never really occurred to her until now. But now that it’s so blatantly obvious, Luna is actually considering it to be true. Long distance relationships probably can’t work out for her.

Her phone buzzes in the corner and she picks it up.

“Lunch out? My treat.”

“Why didn’t you go to work, lazy ass?”

“I’ll tell you during lunch. Come out, I’m just outside the building”

*

“My mom insists I visit this friend’s family with her.”

“Your mom’s friend’s family? Wow, that’s quite far off.”

“Their daughter used to be a friend of mine, too.”

“Used to be? So, you’ve got a knack for breaking off friendships?”

“No. She just…. died. That’s all.”

“O-Oh god, sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize. I don’t understand why people have to, actually. People die, it was a fact.”

“It’s part of reality.”

“Yea, exactly. Part of reality.”

*

“I miss you. I miss you every day. Sometimes it hurts when I don’t miss you.”

The grass beneath her doesn’t give a reply, but instead a biting chill the blades have collected from the coldness of the air. If the clouds were Jinri’s eyes, it was crying because it misses her. It had only been raining except until now.

“What do you say, Jinri? Are you up for a date?”

*

At Luna’s house, later that day after work is done; they peek at her neighbor while he makes his spaghetti naked. Completely naked? No, he at least has his apron on. Good.

They’ve spent so many days together, Luna doesn’t recall what they have and haven’t talked about. She gets embarrassed when Krystal calls her out for telling the same story twice, never mind that her old grumpy neighbor is so interesting, so she throws in a bit of randomness today just to be different and asks: “You’re so nice. How do you do it?”

Krystal looks up. From her book. Philosophy, something about a multi-universe. “I think about how there are already so many evil people out there and how their lives must be so miserable to live like that and my heart softens, and wings protrude from my back and I realize that I am actually an angel.”

“I wish I wasn’t introduced to this side of you.” Luna whines, lengthening her vowels. “I’m being serious here.”

“Okay seriously, it’s inevitable that people get hurt, right? But I think I don’t have to be the one to hurt them. I absolutely don’t have to be that person. Sometimes I refuse to be, but most times I think I just don’t want to be. If I’m a good person because of this, I don’t know. 

“You think I’m nice?” Krystal bats her eyelashes at Luna, shifting the tone of their conversation to where she wants it to be, and closes the book.

“The nicest among all nice things, even better than cotton candy, but sometimes exactly like cotton candy.”

Krystal squints at Luna, not quite understanding what she is trying to say.

Luna gives a proud smile, not inclined to give any more explanations. “Cotton candy is my favorite.”

The book is kept shut. Words are much more interesting when they bounce right off her chest and send her into an unexpected pitfall. Who cares about a multitude of universes when she has the one she wants the most within her reach? Her fingers graze past her knuckles, and soon her lips on her cheek. 

The book is kept shut. She indulges in the idea of being at a place where she can depend on other people not because they think she can’t do it, but because they think she absolutely can. At a place that turns her upside-down, a place that tells her that time can be slow too, that the sea can’t always return to the shore, that paper cranes are just paper cranes and cotton candies are something else. Krystal returns the book neatly on the shelf, and quickly plops herself next to Luna on the bed. She thinks maybe she likes it here a little bit too much, this place.

*

Krystal doesn’t understand, but something keeps on reeling her back to this place. It might have had something to do with conversations with Jinri’s mother and younger brother. Stories about Jinri that Krystal has always known now serve as distant memories. They put up pictures of Jinri next to their newly taken family photo, one with Mr. Choi proudly beaming with his greying hair.

“17 forever,” Krystal begins. “You’re living the life, Jinri.”

Krystal sweeps the leaves that had fallen on her name. Autumn. And places the bundle of lilies she has brought down.

“Hey, I’m just kidding. Alright. Your mom has gotten new bed sheets for your room. They kept it same. They had the whole house renovated but they didn’t want anything in your room changed. It was a little odd when I visited because it really felt like a kid’s room, you know. But I stayed there for a while and cried, until I decided to just be hungry instead.”

Krystal laughs.

“They got a new family photo. After eight years. A bigger one. In the living room. It’s a fun and candid one. They made space for your tacky graduation picture on the side, and it kinda looks like you’re watching over them. Hey, are you watching over me, too? Even though it’s creepy if I really think about it. But you know, right? You definitely know, right? Sometimes I wish you really could hear me, so you could give me answers.”

Krystal laughs at herself. “Okay. Don’t. That’d be real scary.”

*

Luna began to understand it. There are times when Krystal says stay away from me because all I have are hands to keep you away. My eyes are not to see you, or even look at you. Luna understands, but the more she understood, the more she didn’t know and the more it was hard to accept. It happens more frequently recently, when she also feels the most like she can’t have her.

Luna began to understand it. The sea will always find its way back to the shore. No matter what.

So she sets the distance herself, imagines life without Krystal and the thought overwhelms her with loneliness.

*

“Why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not.”

Krystal kisses the tip of Luna’s nose. “Lies. Please. Don’t.”

Luna resists and stumbles into herself. She remains silent.

“I might not be able to take it.”

Luna takes one look at her and her heart melts. What an ironic disinclined system.

*

Luna allows herself to have her, just this once. Then she’ll let go, she tells herself, firm and weak at the same time, because possibly she’s only going to be left wanting more afterwards.

“Is there a cure for you?”

“Me? I’m both the disease and the cure.”

Luna presses her lips on the base of her neck, and she smells sickly sweet. Like cotton candy.

(The moment her tongue touches the cotton candy, it all melts away. The sweetness stays, leaves her wanting more. But the often pink sugar made to look like cotton is gone, and the next thing she knows even the sweetness on her tongue is washed away.)

*

Easily, easily, Luna saw it as a struggle to wake up next to Krystal, because she’s the most wonderful thing she can’t wake up next to anymore, can’t have.

“Good morning,” Krystal greets, smiling, hands reaching out for a hug and lips kissing Luna’s cheek, all in three full seconds.

This is how she is on a good morning; Luna tries her hardest to remember. And in the far away corner of her mind, another memory surfaces, distant but relevant: Krystal on a bad morning, downing three cups of black coffee, no sugar, absent-mindedly or probably guided by the sheer fact of unreasonable early morning grumpiness, it was six in the morning after all, and it was supposed to be their vacation. Krystal had a different notion on how to spend her holidays. Perhaps all day under the sheets, resting, hibernating until it was time to work once again. And then what difference would it have made if they just stayed home if she thought this way? They paid for this, too: the sand under their toes, the big tall palm trees, and the coconut juice with the tiny bright colored umbrellas. It was a holiday out, and Luna reels the younger one out of the hotel dining area by informing her of her tiny black bikini.

Her face flitted with all different kinds of emotions in a matter of seconds, the last one settling on her pretty face much longer than the rest. Krystal smiles pathetically, accepting her invitation quickly by telling Luna to give her five minutes to get dressed or... undressed, no matter, Luna waited and they walked under the sun afterwards, holding hands, considering having a go at the jet skiing even if they didn’t bring any money.

Luna tries her hardest to remember. They were happy then. They could be happy now, but why is she letting another feeling outweigh that? Doubt. Doubt is the worst. A dark cloud that blocks the light, prevents shadows, an extension of reality, blocks the brightness, and creates dullness, a sadness that becomes a cycle. Doubt is the worst.

“If you happen to love someone else, please, tell me.”

Krystal pulls away and gives her a look. Possibly ‘the look’, without knowing what ‘the look’ exactly means. “What?”

“If you happen to love someone else, tell me.” Luna moves the hair away from Krystal’s face, and kisses the side of her mouth that determines a frown from a grin, a grin from a frown. “Get up. We’re late for work.”

*

How do people mourn? How do people feel for that irreplaceable loss of a loved one? How do people feel about the process of making them just a loved one – past tense – with all the strings attached to it? Luna doesn’t know in the slightest. She may have lost a loved one, but they’re not people whose love she can say, she has reciprocated greatly. Love is a two way thing. Her great grandfather, who she saw live up to nearly a hundred years of age, doesn’t even remember her name, doesn’t know whose daughter she is in the last moment they have shared together.

How do people feel when they’ve lost something so valuable it can never be replaced by anything else? Luna realizes she can’t share the same feelings as them because she has never lost anything. Krystal brings her to the cemetery and introduces her to Jinri. Luna realizes she can’t ever share the same emotions as them because she can’t lose anything she didn’t gain. Jinri has brought Krystal to the grave with her.

But if what she is feeling now is any bit similar to how they’ve felt, how Krystal probably felt years ago when Jinri died, then Luna doesn’t want to share in any of them.

*

Krystal stays at Luna’s apartment for dinner. It’s pasta night. And for some unspoken probably irrational reason they have both agreed on and eventually forgotten, they are always to spend pasta night together.

The older one was only innocently making her way to her room when Krystal manages to grab a hold of her wrist and pulls her in a movement that allowed for Luna to be sat on the younger one’s lap. Krystal pouts at her, and tucking the loose strand of hair behind her ear and away from her face. “You’ve been quiet.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? Life suddenly just flips you completely, with no guarantee you end up where you really wanted.”

“I don’t like where this is going, Luna.”

“I don’t like where this is going, too.”

*

The distance weaves itself into time, creating a thick tangled loop big enough to become a barrier Krystal can’t cross. And she just leaves it be.

A string of connections separate Luna from her temporarily, distracting her from the pain. Jinyoung knows Sunye. Sunye who plans to marry and have an extravagant wedding and Jinyoung, ever-angelic and compassionate Jinyoung, tells her that they’ll have to help with the wedding arrangements and everything, after securing their friendship over a discussion of whether an inclusion of poppies would be better over none at all. It keeps her busy outside of work, having to think of decisions that don’t reflect on her life, like cake flavors, menu choices and fabric colors, big silly things.

And before Luna knew it, she was thinking of a different wedding – her own.

Luna cries harder than Jinyoung the moment Sunye walks the aisle. Luna wishes her own heart yearned for things she can reach for, things she can keep so that she could stop bearing the pain of blindly trying.

*

The elephant waited to be noticed, and if it were upon the elephant at all, it wished to be noticed, to be discussed, to be poked around with for a bit. It took up too much space it was hard to ignore. 

But when the elephant grew, it took up even more space, all that one has to do is live with the fact that it is there. An elephant exists.

*

Eventually, people are only configured to forget. Put away memories in such a faraway place in their minds, they are never to have it back, unable to grope around so many events that have happened, or thoughts that they wished had happened instead. Incapable. Human. So human. And even if they were so blessed to recover some precious parts of what once was a reality, they understand now that it isn’t made for them to remember, that these things have been kept away shut because they have to.

Time moves on by itself without paying regard to anybody. And the present is the tiniest little moment people try to squeeze themselves into, the moment they have tried and done so, it is done.

So many are interested in the past, there’s a profession for it, a field of study for it. But what for? They say it’s so that the now isn’t ruined, for the same mistakes not to be repeated. But. The now is stronger than the before. The now likes the thrill of the pain. The now likes the pain, because what else is the world to offer?

Make the same mistakes because there is no such thing. There are no mistakes. And there are never the same ones.

Mr. Hartmann said his goodbye this way. A speech, all ironic really, about forgetting when it was something Krystal can’t ever forget, even if she tried to. His heart grew fond of her, she who can speak his name so beautifully. And it’s not all about Krystal being American, she never felt American, (Hartmann isn’t even American,) it’s the way she’s always wanted to say his name because Krystal knew she didn’t have to be confused about all these feelings surrounding her whenever he discusses British Isles and Columbus because his name says it all in the most accurate of ways. No one else’s entry into high school could be more perfect, no one could tell her otherwise.

No one else’s entry into high school could also be as tragic. He was her first love, Krystal knew, without even having experienced it previously, but she knew. Just knew and then Mr. Hartmann leaves before they could even finish the school year.

He’s right about everything if Krystal remembers his words correctly, but lying back in bed, she begins to doubt herself because she can’t even remember how he looks like, can’t remember what made him so charming back then.

Hartmann is right about one thing though; people are always going to forget. So why can’t she? 

*

“Do you want to talk?”

“Nope, no, no, no, no.”

“Can I talk and you just listen?”

“No. Because you’ll say things and I’ll believe them. If you told me that dinosaurs still exist, I’ll fucking believe you, you know? I’ll try to make them the truth, but in the end, it still won’t be. Don’t you think that’s bad enough?”

“They exist in memory. At least. Fossil records. They exist as theory, for what we could be. Nothing. An extinction.”

“I’m leaving.”

*

Luna looks back on their vacation. Nothing could ever compare to her happiness then. Krystal was a ... discovery. Is a discovery. Not a day passes by that Luna thinks little of how her brain works, how different her heart is. Pure. Sensational.

Luna looks back on their vacation.

“Are you a virgin?”

Krystal shakes her head. “I was eighteen and I knew him six days.”

“Good job! Where is he now?”

“Dunno. Never really kept track, probably never really wanted to.”

They’re watching the sunset by the tiny balcony of their hotel room. Luna is hunched up with her laptop, fixing schedules and timetables because she happens still to be the most reliable one even when she’s away.

“Have you ever had sex with a girl?”

“Nah, have you?”

Luna removes her gaze on her laptop screen, and sends Krystal a playful smile. “I have.”

“How was it?”

“She was my first. And I think I am the way that I am because of her. Although it’s sad I had to fall out of love with her. Or that she had to fall out of love with me.”

“No, I mean, how was it?”

“What a pervert.”

*

“Do you remember your first love?”

“No,” But Krystal remembers. Who forgets anyway? Before Jinri, there was someone. A shadow of a someone. But Krystal thinks, before Jinri, how could she have known what love is or what qualified as love? Before Jinri, there was probably that shadow of a person filling that shadow of a love.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Luna asks her.

“Do you remember your first love?” Krystal echoes and moves next to the older female in bed. It could be an interesting story if Luna herself insists Krystal asks the question.

“Yes, I do. But the story is no good. Well, the end is no good. At all. No one wants to hear it.”

“I want to hear it.”

What a game.

“No one wants to hear it. You, especially. I was pretty crazy about her.”

“You were pretty crazy about the sex.” Krystal rolls her eyes.

Luna contemplates her reply. Was she crazy about the sex? Hm. Maybe. It was part of it, the sex. It was the easier part of it. Everything else? Complicated. Communication is like a riddle. Words exchanged didn’t feel exchanged at all. Relationships screwed her up. (Ha ha ha!) Turned her into a mad woman. Made her insane. In the end, Luna thinks, their sex wasn’t about love making; it was about making her crazy. Was she crazy about the sex? Well, yea, okay, she was. Krystal wasn’t all that wrong.

“You’re right. I’d hate to hear it.”

Luna turns to Krystal who is now, without surprise, sulking. She can only laugh.

“Maybe in a year or two or three or god knows how long, I’ll talk about you.”

“Are you implying that you’ll leave me?”

“Or you would. I don’t know. You’re charming. You’re incredible. It’s not hard to fall in love with you really. You can find someone else, or someone else could find you. And you’ll leave me.”

Krystal’s mind gets caught up in the words, the sound, the syllables, the letters that clutter in the space between them. What does Luna mean? It wasn’t hard to fall in love with her? It wasn’t hard? Meaning it was easy? Effortless, perhaps? Just like how people don’t forget to breathe when they fall asleep. Was it that?

“You’re the same. Maybe we’ll leave each other. Create a clean mess.”

“What an irony.”

What an irony, Luna thinks back on it now, how she has suggested the idea before. And you’ll leave me. It rings back in her ears like a dramatic movie score that only calls for tears. Maybe we’ll leave each other. Right. Isn’t that what they’re doing now?

*

“It’s turned to be quite silent in the office, huh?” Amber, like her usual self, notices the pettiest of things in particular.

Had love always screamed noisily, begging to be noticed? Wanting their attention even more than they have already given? The physical aspect of it, undeniably, is booming. Loud. Interactions and affections are noisy and annoying, but theirs wasn’t that sort. And if it wasn’t, what sort of love is theirs if its absence fills the air with silence? What is the opposite of love?

“Hadn’t it always been this way?”

Victoria looks at Krystal as she gives her reply. It’s 10 in the evening and for the first time; they spend it in the office. It’s really no question why it’s quiet. It’s night time. It’s not their usual office hours. Amber’s dumb.

“Anyway, Krystal, do you know where Luna ran off to? No one’s heard from her for a while.”

It’s like a requirement to have one idiotic friend. Victoria sighs and hits Amber’s head with the back of her hand. “You said it yourself no one’s heard from her for a while.”

“I was just thinking... since... you know... Luna and Krystal are like... together-ish.”

Victoria shakes her head as she turns to Krystal. “She’s not thinking really. I know. Her brain is up her ass.”

“Aren’t you hungry? I’m hungry. We should eat.” Krystal nods quietly, looking at the ground, and led the way out.

*

“You know you shouldn’t make her wait.”

“I know.”

“Don’t turn her into you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean don’t make her wait for someone who wouldn’t be hers.”

“That would be the last thing I would want for her, for anyone really.”

“Then stop.”

Krystal wishes she knew how to. She feels like an old stuffed toy in a claw toy machine. And it’s just stuck. She’s stuck and she doesn’t mind but the kid wants her token-earned stuff animal. The child punches the glass walls that separates her and her stuffed animal but the grip is strong and the claw and the stuffed animal –Krystal imagines a cat– only know how to be stuck, that seems to be the bigger problem.

Jessica snaps her back to reality.“Oh my god, you’re stalling again. I told you to stop doing that. All you have to do is play with the dog, not tease it.”

Jessica takes Vivian into her arms. Vivian is Hyoyeon’s dog. And the dog liked to be carried. If Hyoyeon had a child, it would be a spoiled brat. This is just her dog and it needed two Jungs to be dog-sat. It had a favorite play toy too. Jessica gives Vivian the male doll. Hyoyeon called it Hermoso. It is apparently Vivian’s male counterpart. Both Jessica and Krystal didn’t understand, maybe it was a pet-owner thing to create non-living male human doll counterparts for their dogs. Maybe it was just Hyoyeon.

Vivian chews on her doll, as Krystal walks away.

*

“It’s the first time both of you visit in years and you quarrel.”

Well, they notice.

Jessica speaks first. “I kinda liked being alone. It wasn’t lonely in the least. But being here is different. I like the fights and the food.”

“In that order?” Krystal asks.

“I like you most. You worry me. I think that’s the highest form of love.”

Was it? Krystal doesn’t know for sure. Surely there are plenty forms of love that existed in the world. And if Jessi believed her own version of love, then so be it. It was what she believed in. And belief, Krystal understood now, was stronger than love sometimes, stronger than fear, stronger than death. She was a witness to it. How else could she explain the fact that she has held onto a memory for so long if not for the belief that it would be unfair to let go, of everything including the pain? Had she really loved Jinri if it was purely a belief that she did and that she should still do even for the years following her death simply because she was indebted to her?

“So? Won’t you tell me something like you love me too?”

“Sure sure. I love you too.”

Krystal loved Jessica because she’s family. She knew no other way but to love her. Even if she hated her, she still loved her. Perhaps, she loves Jinri in the same way. She knew no other way but to love her, because she feels like this life she’s living could have been hers. There is love in salvation. (Religion always taught that, didn’t it? And that’s a belief too. Although Krystal admittedly isn’t very religious.)

There is love in salvation. At least there’s that. For Jinri, for her, for the years between them.

*

They both pack their bags at three in the morning. There was something about goodbyes that they both disliked. Other than the permanent stone face and their inability to be able to talk about their feelings with clarity, it was the other thing they shared as siblings. Krystal supposes there are plenty more but they don’t have all day to list them and act like a wonderful loving pair of sisters.

Jessica slips her calling card towards her.

Krystal raises a brow. “I don’t need that. I know your name, your address and your number.”

“Then why don’t you call me?”

Krystal gives no answer. She doesn’t know why. She just didn’t. Between the two of them, it was just always expected for Jessica to call her first.

“Well?”

“I might be a bother.”

“You’re my baby sister. Of course you’re a bother. You should absolutely be a bother, so call. When you need someone to talk to or something. Be a bother.”

“That’s…. not very encouraging.”

“Just break out of bad habits, will you? Call me. I’m your big sister. I can help sometimes.”

Break out of bad habits. What Jessica didn’t know is that she already helped. Jessica says the absolute correct things that snaps Krystal out of reverie. They should have planned this visit long ago. Krystal agrees by nodding. Jessica did help. They hug before going their separate ways. And look at that, they’re already acting like a pair of wonderful loving sisters.

*

What would she tell her? That the time away from her has made her realize a lot of things including the fact (a fact now) that living in the past does not do a person any good. That living in the past has only made her out of touch. That the nostalgia of the past has made her overlook the beauty and possibility of the present.

But that’s all a lie. There is no such realization. 

She just wants to be with Luna now.

She remembers her song from many nights ago. The night Luna revealed her voice to Krystal is also the same night Krystal thinks Luna has revealed all of herself to her. Krystal doesn’t remember the song now. It feels like an irrelevant detail compared to the promise of another song especially sung to her. Luna didn’t really agree but Krystal took it upon herself to think that she will receive her song. She will receive her song. Someday. Soon enough.

That’s what she will tell her. I want my song, just as much as I want you. I want to be with you now. I want to be ready to be with you. So here I am. Krystal runs through the seconds, the minutes, the days that passed by and separated them. Where is Luna now? Should Krystal call her to know? So she does, quietly, with her fingers punching over the keys nervously, but only the ringing greets her afterwards. Where is Luna now?

Where is Krystal now? Where is she now? Lost. Lost, both in thought and in motion. Where should she be now? Krystal doesn’t have the slightest idea. She looks around her and recognizes none of the signs or the people. This place feels like a maze. But Krystal doesn’t recognize if she’s in the end or in the beginning.

“Krystal?” The voice on the other end answers, but Krystal couldn’t find her voice to do the same. Where is she now? She’s scared that she doesn’t have an answer.

*

Victoria finds her. Victoria brings her back to the office and hands her a letter apologetically. It’s a letter telling her to hand in her resignation letter as soon as possible. 

Krystal sighs. In an effort to find herself, what happened was the opposite. She has lost all of her and she struggles with putting the pieces back together.


	2. (the aftermath): in categories / (in a category)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not a love triangle. Really.

She moves away. Although she really can’t say that she hadn’t been away in the first place.

She gets a new job. And somehow although she and Victoria did not used to share a particular bond or relationship that called for them to be close, they are now, ironically even more so now when they don’t even share the same work space. Maybe it’s sympathy. Victoria had that look in her eyes that pitied her, but it was the kind of pity that warranted action and in effect it really wasn’t pity.

If Krystal could change the way she is, she would help Victoria rid herself of the burden of feeling for someone other than her own self. But much to Krystal’s surprise, human nature worked in such a way that people are meant to involve themselves in other peoples’ businesses as if their own wasn’t difficult enough.

She and Victoria did not used to share a particular bond or relationship that called for them to be close, but now they are. Krystal is afraid that she has let her guard down. No one is supposed to be close. And it really wasn’t in the matter of proximity. It agitated her. She distanced herself, moved to small company away from everyone, just so… well, just because. The primary reason she could think of at the moment is hard to say.

Because it was always the truth that needed not to be said.

Much (again) to Krystal’s surprise, it was the truth that was unsettling.

“I usually handle bad outcomes very well. You know. Me. I’m – well, I’m also. A. You know. A bad outcome. And see, I survived. Handled myself very well if I say so myself. Just certain parts that are failing. The essential too. Leadership skills. Social skills. I can go on if you like.”

Speech pattern, Krystal thought to herself. The new unit head sounds incompetent already.

She does her job as wordlessly as she could and it wasn’t in the matter of who she was talking to. Never mind that everyone around her new job is gross, save the new unit head with a weird speech pattern. It was in the matter who she wasn’t talking to that did. And to Krystal all she wanted now was to be home.

She goes back to her cubicle and reads. There isn’t really anything pleasing, anything to take pride in her job now, or any of her other jobs actually. She writes abstracts for journals. They get posted online for review or summary or whatever. She gets a decent outcome for someone who’s sat in an office chair for almost ten hours. Needless to say she did have to invest in a few muscle sore patches to be able to last her work hours. They smell funny too. 

They’re tasked to inventory and catalogue almost always everything. Only a few exceptions don’t fit into anywhere.

_[Others:]_

One of Krystal’s co-workers is an old man, he could pass as someone in his 70’s or 80’s, but Krystal is too timid and not very eagerly curious to know as to why he still works when he could have lived peacefully with his pension funds without having to break his back over so many journals that needed to be catalogued in a day. Quota was two hundred, for the whole office and they meet it in a good day. Sometimes abstracts become half-heartedly done just to achieve the quota. No one really notices how half-hearted their efforts are. Sometimes people read them and never care for who wrote them. Never care for the old man whose back may hurt from too much sitting. Their office chairs really aren’t the most comfortable.

They all have their share of hardships to meet the journal requirement of the day. For Krystal, there turned to be quite plenty of calls and messages from her family that she had refused to take or return just because she can’t let the whole office suffer a few more hours of work (read: back pains) just because she wanted to tell her mother that she misses her.

Her concentration wavers easily, but once it’s there, it’s there.

The old man asks her for a favour with a slight knock. “Would you care to please help me out with putting these away? I’ve no idea where to place them.”

Krystal smiles and takes them, setting them down her table and weighing them down with a hole puncher. “No worries. I’ll inventory them once I’m done with mine as well.”

The old man takes his leave wordlessly. It feels odd not to be thanked for doing something beyond what is asked of her, but then again, it feels odd to be thanked for doing nothing special or interesting at all.

It was her last journal for the day. Science. Physiology. At least that was easy.

Another thing is that, everything here is dated with a time stamp. The embryology journal she put away was from a week ago, recently published from a highly acclaimed university fellow. Something about facial bone gene mutation, but it’s all become a jumbled mess now with all the other journal abstracts Krystal has made.

And yet there is something about her job that isn’t tiring. She likes being alone. She likes living and moving comfortably without having to think of someone else’s boundaries but her own. No one to blame but herself. No one to depend on but herself. Krystal found it easier to live away, because it meant to leave also the things from the past that she doesn’t like, but of course, she knew it also meant to be left behind. She wonders, as she files the old man’s abstract away, which is harder to be the one to leave or to be the one left behind.

She clocks out. Everything in the office is dated with a time stamp. Even them. But then again, there really isn’t a difference when she steps out of the building. Everyone is timed. Date and time of birth. Birthdays. Anniversaries. For occasions. Birthdays. Relationships. Marriages, if people are into that stuff. Until people get too old to celebrate. And then time desiccates. Time of death. The date on a tomb stone. Death anniversaries. Until even that is forgotten. 

The old man commits suicide a week after the new unit head was employed. He blabbers about ‘the whole situation’ (he might as well just call it death, it was simple, the man died) as if he was at fault. But the man was old and the body can only live for so long without deteriorating, even with much care. Everyone in the whole floor, maybe the whole building is telling him that it wasn’t his fault but with a wilful shake of his head, he dismisses everyone. “No. I should have. I should have checked. Everything. Thoroughly. I know him. His wife died of cancer. His wife died of cancer. And I didn’t check. His journals. His loot for the day. I just carelessly. Carelessly gave him whatever. I gave him his death. I made him remember. I did. I did it.”

Surely Krystal is awfully familiar with this. A person bringing another person to the grave with them. Because once she was dead too. When Jinri had died, a part of her did too. Maybe it was the way the universe worked. Or maybe it was simply the way the universe worked for the weak. And because the weak were weak, they were afraid to speak for themselves. They weren’t called the weak at all, never even recognized as the weak, just lying idly in a space used for everyone and everything else that cannot called anything. The others. Not carrying enough strength to move away from that idle space and lying there forever, meekly, quietly, as if reverently wishing to stay in that place that leads them no harm.

The unit head quits the office job after the old man’s funeral. And the silence that followed their departure was sickening, so obviously sickening it made Krystal vomit. It’s better when people forget everything. Her, with Jinri. That old man, with his wife. Everything. It’s better when people forget. Krystal imagines it would feel remarkable, even though it’s disrespectful to the dead, Krystal imagines it to be good. Good for her.

She proceeds to her cubicle but everyone is looking at her. Why? Do they recognize now? The face of the defeated, the weak. Their silent cries. Do they know how she fits nowhere but in that out of place category, the others? Them, looking at her and she, looking back at them. Them and the others. And the wall that separates them.

She isn’t equipped for this. Krystal has lived most of her life believing the fact that she will never be able to learn to move on from Jinri. She supposes normal people don’t do that. She supposes that normal people go on live their normal lives learning to find someone else, and that normal people do end up having someone else.

What does she do with a love like that? A love that has no end. No receiver. Does love accumulate? Or does it vanish almost like everything else? And if it really does, what does she do with a love like that? So insignificant, when all she has ever done was view it otherwise.

Soon enough, the office has hired a new unit head. And the event –the suicide, the unwanted unnecessary crying, the words that seemed to have evaporated into the air above them as they worked, even now–was unspoken of. It reminded Krystal of a brittle part of who she is and who she was and how there seems to be only a slight difference. She leaves the office at exactly 5pm, not that there is anything interesting at home, just that the unit head didn’t really leave much of an impression and anywhere else without his stale personality would be better. Krystal misses the weird speech pattern, the uncontrollable jittering of words. It gave the office something to talk about. Surely, he did. He’s left quite a mark.

The old man is a different story. He’s a legacy. He doesn’t need a memento. He just stays with them, his memory, his work. Maybe some people are meant to be kept alive that way.

*

The phone rings. The phone rings, and Krystal has forgotten that the device can do that. All she has ever done was live in silence. No one drops her a call or a mail or anything. She isn’t deserving of that. She can’t fill the space where they leave off words with more words. Not anymore.

“Krystal?”

Again.

“Krystal?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry, I can’t pay you a visit anymore. It’s been pretty tough in the office lately.”

“I know. You really don’t have an obligation to look out for me. I can handle myself fine.”

“Still, it must be lonely.”

Krystal doesn’t know if she should cry or laugh, for the concern? The pity? She lets Victoria’s reply sink in for a while. “I’ve mastered the art of being a fish.”

“And that means…?”

“I’m a fish.”

“Swim to me then, little fish. I can’t visit you, so come visit me instead. You’ll find it interesting who comes to the office once in a while.”

“I’ve heard Luna’s seeing someone. People talk. People talk all the time.”

“Fishes don’t. If only they could, would you let me know?”

“Know what?”

“What you really feel.”

“I’m afraid to put in words. I feel like if I do it would serve as a driving punch to every misery I feel and every misery I can’t help but be responsible for. I thought I can’t be the only miserable one, but in reality, I am the only one staying miserable. Everyone else has moved on, except me. Sometimes I think I’m incapable, but despite that, it surges me forward, surprisingly. Bit by bit.”

“If I were a fish too, would I be able to understand?”

“The fish doesn’t know that it’s a fish.”

“Anything else I should take note of?”

“Next Wednesday. Lunch, maybe?”

“You know I would always make time for you.”

“Anything I should take note of?”

Victoria pauses. Krystal counts one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi and understands that she needs her time. There are people who love taking their time. Krystal wonders if she took hers for granted instead, wonders if nine-and-counting years went down the drain for nothing. In between that thought and six-Mississippi, Victoria tells her that she’ll get back to her, and shortly after ends the phone call abruptly.

Without Victoria, what would her life be like? A series of eventful office chaos and then un-chaos, as if the suddenly remorse atmosphere is enough to pass as mourning for the dead, as if by rite of passage, things will eventually get better, go back to normal. Krystal muses that they have only changed the meaning of ‘better’ and ‘normal’ to whatever suits the situation. It hasn’t crossed Krystal’s mind how they plan to warp their definition. They’re all at the stage where they don’t know what’s best to fit their interests. Right now all they do is stay sullen. It’s sad that they can only give part of themselves when they remember. Is it empathy if it’s situational? Is it empathy if they only ever recall that they have lost a life whenever they are confined in the same space they used to share? It isn’t empathy if she’s all alone.

Without Victoria, this is what Krystal’s life is. A series of thoughts, connected, one after the other, thoughts that brings her back to what she was running away from in the first place.

After ninety-seven-Mississippi, she stops counting. She’s tired. She’s wasted a lot of time. She puts the phone receiver down, similar to how she has let go of the past nine years (of? It’s not a blur, but she doesn’t want to ever call it anything it’s not and because she doesn’t understand it well enough herself; Krystal might as well just let it remain unnamed.) and not anymore counting, in the manner as if it was the most natural thing to do, because it actually is. After a phone call, you put the phone down and only when it rings, do you pick it up again.

*

Krystal wakes up without recalling having ever slept. The first thing she sees when she opened her eyes was the ceiling. That was enough to fully wake her up. She jolts up into a sitting position and sees the walls – too beige, too plain, too boring.

*

Krystal grew up knowing she is weak. 

Her body has learned to tone itself in all the right shapes and to have all the correct edges to contribute in masking that weakness. Her body has learned to grow away from the asthma, because iron deficiency is already enough to make her suffer numerous days of being bed-ridden, with hospital food served for meals when they really shouldn’t be called food.

Her body has only ever learned to be small, like it has disregarded the importance of size, of largeness because it is a trait opposite of that she is more familiar with, weakness.

Krystal has known that while she is weak, she has strength in the number of people that keep her safe, which makes her in an aspect, strong. But she knows that these same people cannot lend to her their own strength, that no matter how hard they try and no matter how long of a time they contribute into making her seem strong, their own strength cannot be displaced towards hers, not even an amount, not anything to make her feel as though she really is significant.

By the time, Jinri was lowered to the ground; Krystal curses this same innate weakness for making someone else weak too, like it was some contagious disease that needed to be widespread, that needed to be known, that needed a name. If the weak, in turn, made others become one of them – weak as well – who will be strong for them?

Krystal recognizes she is weak. There has never been a moment where she has felt a surge of strength surface from inside of her. Physically weak. Weak all over. After Jinri was announced dead, officially, she recalls making up situations wherein she was the one to die in her place, but it seems as though her mind is unable to conjure images of her dying elsewhere, but a hospital. Pristine white ceilings, and obnoxious beeping machineries connected to every bit of her, as if to resuscitate some void inside of her so willingly giving in to death. All of Krystal’s made up situations concerning her death are versions of this, only with very slight variations, mostly concerning how she managed to end up in that situation. Sometimes she imagines being run over by a car, a vehicle of some sort, but more often she results into thinking of dying with age. It’s a weird thought. That her only strength is in time and even that will give up on her, surrender her to death.

She peeks at their office ceiling, and wishes she never did. Krystal turns to the person sharing the cubicle next to her, sneaks a glance at her name tag before calling her attention. “What color is your ceiling?”

She turns, surprise written all over her face. “Huh?”

Seulgi, her name is Seulgi. “In what color do you have your ceiling, Seulgi-ssi?”

“Uhm,” She swallows, finding her voice to speak. “In my apartment? It’s wallpaper. A cloud pattern, actually.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

“Nothing. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

It speaks volumes of how different she is from Jinri. How even in her death, she remains so beautiful, so unique, so divine. That was probably what she last saw when she died, before her lungs were filled with water, before every bit of her was consumed by the sea – she saw the sky, something as beautiful and wonderful like how she was as a person. And somehow it’s terrible that they have to be so different. That Jinri had to be so kind to save Krystal when all she will ever do to the life she was given is to live it like how she has always done: acknowledging the truth that all she ever will be is a slave to the weakness that resides inside her. A weakness that grows, ironically, more and more each day as she realizes how undeserving she is of the kindness she was given.

“Do you want to come and take a look?”

Seulgi, her name is Seulgi. It takes her a few seconds to remember.

A rare moment of courage. She takes it before it’s too late.


End file.
